Saroosh
it depends on your case
take a look at top 10 websites ranking for your key term
See what's the average number of words they have
That's a figure to look at
tell this to the business owner as well so he knows. Throw data at him to convince him. Tell him you won't rank and would lose traffic and business if you don't have this much text
If the competitors don't have any text or have less text, then don't worry at all
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Kevin
Why is the client telling you what to do instead of asking you what needs to be done? That's your first problem.
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Parker
The client is setting you up to fail.. they hire you to do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but won't allow you to do what is needed sounds like an excuse for them to get out of it! You can always add pages that on the backend and indexed but not seen on their website (not in the nav bar) just a thought you can also do schema that has all the text there! This will 100% work if done correct and the work around with no text on the site put it in the schema
Truslow
The minimum amount of text you need is the amount of text it takes to say everything you need to say.
That said, videos have an opportunity to hit with a 1-2 punch. Different people like to digest information differently. Many people much prefer getting their information from videos. Me, it's one of my least favorite ways – I want to go to a page, jump quickly and easily to the section I'm looking for, get my answer, and be gone.
So… get a transcript done for your videos. (YouTube can do it right there – for other places you might need a service). Edit it and format it nicely so it's easy to see the key topics and all that. Publish that along with the video and now you've got good spiderable copy, help the video to rank too, and double your reach.
Keith 🎓
Pro tip: ADD more text and headlines to Gallery pages of images and videos, then watch rankings go up.
G algorithm loves text. You must build pages designed for the users. Even photographer businesses benefit with text for customers to read. Sure you need galleries of images and videos, but you need text as well.
Phil
Solution: separate the site into "nice customer pages" and "SEO landing pages".
He gets nice looking pages and you get to have SEO pages with as much text as you want.
You both get what you want.

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Patrick
Ooof been there before.
Reset expectations for sure but a sneaky work around for you if you like for videos: PDFs with transcripts and a little extra info added by you. Sell it to him as a text link under each video and say it'll help with the algo and for users. It's a stop gap measure though.
Basically you gotta get control. I'd say find the too few pages you think will ranks easily and get some traffic – 3-5 page is enough and ask him for a test of extra content. Then optimise them like your life depends on it. Usually once they see the traffic increase they change their mind. Otherwise, fire this client.
Maybe also frame the convo like; u don't want the extra text but that's how the algo works. We can't dictate to Google the rules we have to play the game. Once you have authority and rankings we can take off some content (he will forget about it by then and/or have changed his tune due to results).
Olivier
Most if business do know what they do but they do not to self theme.
Look his competitors. What they do.
Ask them a minimun and i Can send you a script that they can follow.
SEO page important but After it will dépend what and how they communicate.
Ask them what their rate to their client and you synchronise your Price to them with Time consulting.
I would Say 5000 words ..
200$ for writing the page for them with 5000 and with a spécial structure..
Akinola
Well if they don't want much text and want to rank.
They better be ready to spend tons on HQ backlinks and brand name link building.
Hence! 😂
Lobo
Write the text in white color
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Jeff
There's no such thing as "minimum" or even "maximum" amounts of text when it comes to ranking. As I like to say, it's not about the length, but the *depth* – that is, is the text provided illustrating the web page owner's understanding and authority on the topic. You're going to see quite a few folks on here try and get specific with the number, and most of that comes from some really poorly executed correlation studies on the subject. We're human, we love to have something we can rearch for and when dealing with computers, it's easy to assume they must deal in specifics; however, that's just not the way it works. It also doesn't matter how much your competitor writes. Google uses thousands of different ranking factors, and looking at what a competitor does for a given keyword result could lead you on a wild goose chase. However, just know this – Google loves text, and if your employer wants to keep text to a minimum, make sure you set expectations that his viewers are going to need to come from other places besides the Organic search channel – and that's ok.
Gartrell
1.Leave his crappy website alone, or make whatever dumb changes he wants for a fee.
2. Build your own lead gen asset in his nitch. That way you own it.
3. When it ranks, and gets calls, sell him the leads.
4. If he turns out to be a slug, sell the leads to his competitor.
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Morgan
You can win with the less is more configuration of a website.
You're asking the wrong question though. You're looking for the magic number. The better approach is to figure out how to make it work.
Let your creative juices flow. You're a blind Google Bot and you want to know where you're at. How do you explain it, and look great to us the visitors.
Don't forget if images are involved, go heavy on the alt tags.
Don't see it as a limit of what you can't do, but a challenge to up your SEO game.

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